Theatre Season

UIC THEATRE SEASON 18-19

Desperately Holding on to Pieces of the Past

In life we don’t always get what we want. It’s true; and if what we want is important we long and struggle—for ourselves, our families, our faith, our values—to make things right. However, if we do not struggle hard enough, or struggle too hard, or wait too long, or act too quickly, we may squander our opportunity.

Join us for UIC Theatre’s 2018-2019 season. Follow timeless characters in contemporary takes of classic plays as they long and struggle to obtain what they believe is most important. Follow Luis Alfaro’s ELECTRICIDAD as she fights to make sense of injustice and an all-consuming desire for revenge; or the family in Chekhov's THREE SISTERS as they pine for a future that will never be; or Brutus as he is torn between love for friend and country in the Q-Brother’s ROME SWEET ROME; or, finally, Blanche and Stanley as they wrestle over truth in Tennessee Williams’ A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

ELECTRICIDAD

By Luis Alfaro

Directed by Marcela Muñoz

Show Times

Opens Friday, September 28, at 7:30PM,

Also Performs September 29, October 4, 5 and 6 at 7:30PM,

September 30, October 3 and 6 at 2:00PM

*Post-Show Talk: Vengeance, Fate and Forgiveness September 30th

ELECTRICIDAD is not your typical chola. She was raised by the hood and honors the history of loyalty and violence from las calles of East Los Angeles. She will not rest until her mother pays for murdering her papá, el rey.

Written by MacArthur award-winning playwright Luis Alfaro and directed by Aguijón Theater’s Co-Artistic Director Marcela Muñoz, this reimagining of Sophocles’ ELECTRA will transport you to the East LA’s barrios where no one is safe.

Based on Dramaturgical Translations by Charlotte Hobson and Dassia PosnerDirected by Yasen Peyankov

Show Times

Opens Friday, November 9 at 7:30PM

Also Performs: November 10, 15, 16, and 17 at 7:30PM

November 11, 14 and 17 at 2:00PM

Post- Show Talk: Longing, Regret, and Dreams on November 11

Family life in in 19th century Russia was not all cozy dinners and laughs around the samovar. With dark humor THREE SISTERS captures the uninspired rural lives of Olga, Masha and Irina. Their longing for a past long gone and an imagined future home in Moscow, is a desperate reach toward a life of purpose and meaning. Adapted by Pulitzer Prize award-winning playwright Tracy Letts and directed by Steppenwolf Theatre Artistic Associate and Head of Theatre at UIC, Yasen Peyankov.

Rome in the first century BCE feels remarkably familiar. Torn by men and women vying for power in order to do good—for themselves, for their families, for the future of the Republic—nothing less than the future is at stake, and Brutus is a man caught in the middle with the ability to make a difference.

ROME SWEET ROME is a remix of William Shakespeare’s classic, JULIUS CAESAR, that blends rap and hip-hop culture with socio-political commentary on contemporary politics. Written by Jeff Award-winning Q Brothers.

Blanche DuBois has few options. With her husband dead, her family home in Mississippi lost, her future uncertain, she travels alone and lonely to make a new life with her sister in the New Orleans French Quarter. Longing and lying for a future that is bearable, Blanche’s desire is ultimately no match for her brother-in-law’s crushing demand for the truth. Jeff Award-winning director and the School of Theatre and Music faculty member Derrick Sanders directs Tennessee Williams’ American classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

Post Show Talk Special Guest: Christina Pugh

Christina Pugh is Professor of English in the Program for Writers at UIC, and consulting editor for Poetry. She is the author of four books of poems, including Perception (Four Way Books, 2017), which was named one of the top poetry books of 2017 by Chicago Review of Books; and Grains of the Voice (Northwestern University Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Yale Review, and many other publications. Her work has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in poetry, as well as fellowships and awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Illinois Arts Council, the Bogliasco Foundation, and others.